Could you have created a DDR (GDR) in any part of Germany with similar results?

How might the DDR have developed if somewhat less land had been given to Poland after the war (for instance, Stettin and other parts of Silesia and Pomerania) [...]?

That'd make virtually no difference as it doesn't change the structure of the system. The Problem of the GDR wasn't the number of displaced Person, nor enough farmland (it could basically feed its population with homemade-food such as bread and potatoes), nor enough industry (rather more how much of it the Soviets took away after 1945 and how difficult it was to replace these losses wheras Western companies took up credits and modernizes what they had to pay as reparations, actually giving them a competitive edge), and not even the lack of a big harbour such as Stettin (as they wouldn't make proper use of it).

Overall: the mismanagement and political oppression coming with the Stalinist System would not change. So, 1953 would probably still happen, just also east of the Oder and Neisse. Ulbricht would still feel forced to build the Berlin Wall and so on.

This was exacerbated by the existence and success of the FRG on the basis of a shared culture, language and pre-war economic history. Unlike Hungarians or Polish, the GDR population always had at arm's length a look at "what a German economy can accomplish".

***
Concerning the "tribal" Situation of the GDR - the main issue IMHO was that it lumped together two mentalities which didn't fit well. Prussians and Saxons were traditional rivals and see themselves as having a somewhat different mentality. Saxons could view the GDR with its militarism and rigidity negatively as Prussian; whereas non-Saxons listened to Ulbricht's distinct Saxon dialect and view the GDR negatively as Saxon.

[see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Saxon_German]
 
That'd make virtually no difference as it doesn't change the structure of the system. The Problem of the GDR wasn't the number of displaced Person, nor enough farmland (it could basically feed its population with homemade-food such as bread and potatoes), nor enough industry (rather more how much of it the Soviets took away after 1945 and how difficult it was to replace these losses wheras Western companies took up credits and modernizes what they had to pay as reparations, actually giving them a competitive edge), and not even the lack of a big harbour such as Stettin (as they wouldn't make proper use of it).

Overall: the mismanagement and political oppression coming with the Stalinist System would not change. So, 1953 would probably still happen, just also east of the Oder and Neisse. Ulbricht would still feel forced to build the Berlin Wall and so on.

This was exacerbated by the existence and success of the FRG on the basis of a shared culture, language and pre-war economic history. Unlike Hungarians or Polish, the GDR population always had at arm's length a look at "what a German economy can accomplish".

***
Concerning the "tribal" Situation of the GDR - the main issue IMHO was that it lumped together two mentalities which didn't fit well. Prussians and Saxons were traditional rivals and see themselves as having a somewhat different mentality. Saxons could view the GDR with its militarism and rigidity negatively as Prussian; whereas non-Saxons listened to Ulbricht's distinct Saxon dialect and view the GDR negatively as Saxon.

[see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Saxon_German]
Imagine a GDR as a twin-state Bavaria-Prussia...
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Imagine a GDR as a twin-state Bavaria-Prussia...

PoD: Somehow, the Soviets link up with the Communist-aligned Slovak rebels in 1944, and or, somehow, the Hungarians manage to defect from the Axis as successfully as the Romanians. This allows the Soviets to start 1945 from a more advanced position in south central Europe, from which they occupy all Austria (perhaps except Voralberg) and Bavaria, however you define it.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
PoD: Somehow, the Soviets link up with the Communist-aligned Slovak rebels in 1944, and or, somehow, the Hungarians manage to defect from the Axis as successfully as the Romanians. This allows the Soviets to start 1945 from a more advanced position in south central Europe, from which they occupy all Austria (perhaps except Voralberg) and Bavaria, however you define it.

Alternate PoD - British and American invasion sectors in Normandy are switched, resulting in the Americans being the ones going into the Low Countries and Northern Germany, and British being the ones to work to the south and go through Alsace-Lorraine into southern Germany, and for whatever reason, they don't get to push as far east into southern Germany.
 
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